Artist Statement

An individual of a social group portrays a certain façade that can be read and analyzed by another. A viewer looking at a particular image can have a very different reaction than another. Even if this reaction remains internal, an individual’s upbringing will shape independent conclusions of what they see. A goal of my work is to convey a particularized emotion for an individual viewer. There are emotions that I wish to evoke and I paint with that intention. As the artist, I am separate from the viewer’s decision on what it is that the viewer truly sees. I am just as interested in what they see portrayed and not as concerned about whether the viewer has “gotten” exactly what I had set out to represent. The subtleties between the difference of opinion and intent from the viewer can allow just as much interest as a direct read within the work.
My work reflects an examination through questioning society’s values, active norms and mentality on how life “should” be. In this process, I also search myself for the same questions and answers. My paintings tie into my perception of the world around me, my humor, thought processes and my ideas about life and death. Naturalism has always been a great interest of mine, however, I don’t depict a naturalistic composition or figure. I use ambiguous colors to depict the human form to keep from identifying any particular group and to merge them all together, excluding no one. The color also represents ambiguity in what is “true” or what I perceive to be true and what is to come. I work on my image in a single obsessive compulsive, ala prima application until I feel that the particular portion is completed. My process directly influences the scale of my work. I consider myself most comfortable with a near life-size scale due to the mark a particular brush size makes and the room it allows for blending the paint.